May 6, 2021
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JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
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VOLUME 155 | ISSUE 20
Jeffco “heading in wrong direction” as COVID cases still rising Increasing number of cases in schools also a concern BY PAUL ALBANI-BURGIO PALBANIBURGIO@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The acquisition is the first for NTLN, a nascent nonprofit that seeks to leverage national foundation funding to buy and bolster local newspapers threatened by faltering business models and the encroachment of hedge funds and corporate conglomerates. The Colorado Sun, a statewide news outlet founded and run by former Denver Post journalists, will oversee daily operations at Colorado Community Media.
“We are still going in the very wrong direction.” That was the bottom line takeaway from the COVID-19 update Jeffco Public Health Executive Director Dawn Comstock gave to the Jefferson County on April 28. Comstock said the county’s seven-day case rate was nearly 200 cases per 100,000 residents, which is the highest it had been since late October when Governor Polis was just days away from instituting some of the most severe COVID-19 restrictions of the pandemic. Test positivity also continued to increase and was at 6.1% as of April 28. “We are clearly in a fourth wave,” said Comstock. “There is no denying it at all.” But even as increases in those metrics created new concern for public health officials, Comstock said Jeffco remained well below the threshold of new hospitalizations that would lead county public health officials to institute new restrictions under the county’s two-phased reopening plan. Under that plan, county officials could move the county to Level Blue on the state’s latest COVID-19
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SEE COVID, P10
Ann Healey, former co-owner of Colorado Community Media, speaks during a meeting announcing the sale of the print and digital news company. At right, former publisher and co-owner Jerry Healey and reporter Thelma Grimes listen. PHOTO BY JOHN LEYBA/SPECIAL TO THE COLORADO SUN
‘Tell stories that matter:’ Colorado Community Media sold to news entity Colorado Sun, national foundation to take the reins of two dozen Denver-area newspapers BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Colorado Community Media, the company that produces two dozen newspapers around the Denver-ar-
ea suburbs — including the Golden Transcript — and two shoppers has been acquired by a local and national partnership with the goal of building a sustainable business model for local news, its ownership announced on May 3. Jerry and Ann Healey, the couple who built the company over the past decade, sold the network of papers that now spans eight counties and dozens of communities to a joint partnership between the National Trust for Local News, or NTLN, and The Colorado Sun.
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 16 | SPORTS: PAGE 17
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Apple cider lovers enjoy sampling season P14